Tuesday, 31 May 2016

When you were growing up, did you have an
imaginary friend? Did they seem real to you? Maybe sort-of-real. You could talk
to them, imagine their responses, play with them but you probably kept the
‘relationship’ within certain boundaries – however young you were. In my case,
I invented an entire family of siblings – three sisters (two older, one a few
years younger) and an older brother who looked out for us girls. Being an only
child, I found them comforting, and fun, but I never imagined them to be real.
They, in turn, kept themselves firmly lodged in my own mind and never attempted
to cross any boundary into the real world.

In my new novel, The Devil’s Serenade, my central character also had an imaginary
family when she was a child. Scarily for her, they now start to appear in her
real adult world.

Of course, my story is fiction, but there
have been a number of accounts of small children making ‘friends’ with most
unsuitable imaginary characters – who then cross the line. They can do this because
they are not really imaginary at all – just invisible, at least to all except
the child itself.

One instance involves the
story of a four year old boy called Jayden and the strange events that began
during the height of summer when his mother heard him apparently talking to
someone. She didn’t think too much about it at the time as he was playing with
his toys and she assumed it was part of the game he had invented for himself
that day. “C’mon, Jack! You’re the bad guy!” her son said.

A few days later, her son had
a vivid dream and told his mother about it. In it, he had been going away somewhere
with his friend, Jack. From then on, Jack seemed to be his major topic of
conversation. Eventually his mother became so irritated by the constant
repetition of his name that she demanded to know who this ‘Jack’ was.

Immediately, her son pointed
behind her and said, “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

She turned, but there was no
one there. The mother was momentarily unnerved but then decided there was no
harm in it. Jack was obviously an imaginary friend.

A week later, Jayden was in
his room and started yelling. His mother dashed upstairs to find his room in
chaos. Toys, books and clothes were strewn everywhere. His mother demanded he
clean up the mess rightaway, but Jayden was in a furious temper. “It was Jack!”
he insisted.

“It wasn’t Jack,” his mother
said. “There is no Jack!”

Soon after that, Jayden’s
mother came into his room to find him standing on top of his cupboard. She was
perplexed as to how he could have got up there by himself as it was a metre and
a half high.

“Jack told me to jump,”
Jayden said. “I have to be nice to him or he will hurt me.” His mother helped him down and cuddled him close, as her mind raced. What was happening here?

All was quiet for a few days until she was passing his room and saw Jayden playing. To her horror, she saw toys and books move by themselves
across the room. Her little boy cried, “No, Jack, no!”

She dashed in to comfort her child. Instantly, the activity ceased.

Jayden’s mother installed a baby monitor in his room. She
didn’t have to wait long for a result. Listening downstairs, she heard Jayden’s
voice on the monitor. White noise or static followed and every so often she
could make out another voice. She couldn’t understand what it was saying, but it was clear Jayden could. Suddenly over the monitor, a
strange male voice boomed out. “I will hurt you!”

A loud thud echoed around the
house. When Jayden’s mother reached him, she found her son lying on the floor,
injured, crying and in pain. She rushed him to the hospital, where they found
he had a sprained wrist and a fractured rib.

“Jack pushed me off the
cupboard,” he said.

His mother called in a
priest, who conducted a house cleansing and, mercifully, this seemed to do the
trick because Jayden has never mentioned Jack since and life has returned to
normal.

Imaginary friends. They can
be innocent good fun – but some of them clearly have alternative agendas.

Saturday, 21 May 2016

No one knows just how many bodies lie under the peaceful, rolling landscape of Edinburgh's Greyfriars Kirkyard. It is known that, in 1562, Mary Queen of Scots gave the land to the town as an overflow cemetery for the overcrowded St Giles churchyard. It took just 340 years to accumulate 100,000 bodies, not helped by the addition of several tons of human remains re-interred there from St Giles during restoration work there.By the late eighteenth century, the situation was so bad that it was almost impossible for the sextons to dig a fresh grave without coming across remains - some of which were not by any means fully decomposed. You certainly get the feeling as you wander among the gravestones, that you are not alone. Is that whispering an unquiet spirit? Or merely the breeze ruffling the spring leaves...?

There are only two entrances to the Kirkyard and, if you enter from the junction of Candlemaker Row, Chambers Street and George IV Bridge, chances are you will have paused a moment to reflect upon one of Edinburgh's most famous monuments. Unusually, it is not commemorating some famous war hero, monarch or statesman. This little bronze statue, said to have been carved from life not long before its subject died, is of a faithful Skye terrier called Bobby. His story is one of simple, lifelong devotion. His owner was a policeman called John Gray who was employed as a night watchman by Edinburgh City police. Bobby was just two years old when his owner died and was interred in Greyfriars Kirkyard. For fourteen years, the little dog guarded his master's grave until he too died in 1872, aged 16. Technically, Bobby was a stray and could have been subject to a tragic fate, but the Lord Provost of Edinburgh - William Chambers - paid for his license and Bobby was granted the freedom of the City of Edinburgh. In 1873, a local philanthropist, Lady Burdett-Coutts, commissioned a statue of the faithful dog to be positioned atop a drinking fountain which would provide refreshment for both weary humans and dogs alike. Sadly the fountain's water supply has been turned off, but the monument remains and generations of visitors have rubbed the little dog's nose so that it gleams in the sunshine.

Not all tales of Greyfriars Kirkyard are so sweet. Sir George Mackenzie
(1636-91) was known as the ‘Hanging Judge’. Boasting that he had ‘never lost a
case for the King’, he was a man of violent temper, and a scourge of the
Covenanters – a group of Scottish Presbyterians who signed a Covenant
protesting at the form of English worship introduced by Charles I. For this,
they were branded as heretics and Mackenzie saw it as his mission to rid
Scotland of their presence. When he died, he was buried in an ornate mausoleum,
but it appears his spirit does not rest in peace.

Inside the Black Mausoleum

The Mackenzie Poltergeist is
a familiar presence – especially after dark. City
of the Dead Tours run a fascinating nightly trip around the graveyard, culminating
in Mackenzie’s Black Mausoleum. The tours have been running since 1999 and
during that time, hundreds of visitors have reported being pushed, tugged,
scratched and knocked over. Jan-Andrew Henderson’s book, The
Ghost That Haunted Itself gives a collection of visitors’ spooky – and at
times disturbing - experiences.

There are many unusual gravestones in Greyfriars Kirkyard. Some have no
names – just initials – but the most enigmatic (for me at least) has to be the
one which simply reads, ‘Miss Cathcart’. There is no trace of a first name. No
one today knows who she was. Since I returned from Edinburgh, I have been researching
likely candidates. Judging by the style of lettering on the wall-mounted stone carving, and
comparing it with nearby memorials, it may have been created in the
mid-nineteenth century. I have found at least two possible contenders from
around that time. Spinster sisters called Miss Helen and Miss Isabella Cathcart
who each owned a house in fashionable Princes Street. One of them could have
been the Miss Cathcart (no first name given) who was Treasurer of the Edinburgh
Ladies Association – a worthy institution that raised money for missionary
causes.

But who would erect a memorial to a person without showing their first name?
Maybe they didn’t know it. Maybe this Miss Cathcart was a teacher and the
tablet was commissioned and paid for by a grateful former student who never
knew her as anything but ‘Miss Cathcart’. The possibilities are many and
varied. But then, I never could resist a mystery…

Tuesday, 10 May 2016

Somer Canon is an exciting new author who has hit the horror scene with a most unusual, exceptional novella. Here she gives a clue as to one of her influences:

I have a hazy
memory of being not long out of my toddler years and attending my first
funeral. My grandmother had me for the
weekend, as she often did, but she needed to attend the viewing of her recently
deceased elderly neighbor. I knew the
woman vaguely in that to my young mind, she as a gifter of an endless supply of
colorful hard candies.

It was an uncomfortable experience,
seeing that kind lady looking to be asleep surrounded by her weeping
family. I remember my grandma telling me
not to look at her and when I asked why, she said that I was too young, a
catch-all explanation that I loathed.

“If I’m not supposed to look, why is
she out for everybody to see?” I asked.

My grandma had no answer.

The experience was vastly different
when my grandma passed. Drowning in the
grief of losing someone who had always been so important to me, I was still
able to be confused that my mom and my aunt bought my grandma a new dress and
jewelry for her viewing. The funeral
home styled her hair in a way different from how she wore it and they put too
much makeup on her. All of that toiling
away to create the illusion that she was merely sleeping ended up looking
gruesome to me. I, like everyone else
who knew and loved her, preferred her how she had looked when she was alive,
not overly painted and wearing clothes she’d never have picked out for
herself.

Seeing her like that caused me to
make up my mind that I did not want that for myself.

Vicki, a character in my novella, Vicki Beautiful, agrees with me. She has serious concerns about how her last
showing to her loved ones would be carried out. While I want to avoid causing
distress to my loved ones by creating a poorly executed illusion, Vicki wants
to avoid looking anything other than beautiful perfection.

One last taste of perfection…

Sasha and Brynn descend upon the
showplace home of their girlhood friend, Vicki, planning to celebrate her
surviving cancer to reach her fortieth birthday. As they gather around Vicki’s
perfectly set dinner table, though, her husband shares devastating news. The
cancer is back, and she doesn’t have long to live.

Her life is cut even shorter than Sasha
and Brynn expect—the next morning, their friend is found dead, her flawless
skin slit at the wrists. But a tub full of blood is only the beginning. Before
the weekend is through, they are forced to question how far they’re willing to
go to fulfill Vicki’s last wish.

A very specific, very detailed recipe
that only the truest of friends could stomach…

Praise for Vicki Beautiful

“ I read this at one gripping session and I shall read more by this author. Excellent, original and worth every one of my five stars.” –Catherine Cavendish, Author of The Devil’s Serenade

“At times it reminded me of the cult classic "Eating Raoul" and others "The Big Chill". Suffice to say, Canon has created an intriguing tale that will not only have you caring about characters put into an awkward, unsettling situation but also wondering how they'll react to it every step of the way. I highly recommend this unique and entertaining story.” –Matthew Franks, Author The Monster Underneath

“This is not the normal type of book that I would read, but the cover sold it to me, and I like reading new authors and genres. This book is beautifully written, the writing flows and you feel you really understand what the character’s are feeling…” Rebecca, GoodReads Reviewer

“The ending of this story was truly horrific. I am an old school horror fan, and have been indulging in the genre since I was old enough to hold a book. I also adore and enjoy the sub-genre splatterpunk, I read Jack Ketchum as a bedside book all the time. It takes a lot to phase me, but even I was turning my head in repulsion at the end. What a wonderful debut story for Somer Canon.” –Badseedgirl, GoodReads Reviewer

“A simple story, but all the more powerful for its simplicity. Four stars. The author has guts and skill.” –Outlaw Poet

Somer Canon is a minivan revving
suburban mother who avoids her neighbors for fear of being found out as a weirdo. When she’s not peering out of her windows,
she’s consuming books, movies, and video games that sate her need for blood,
gore, and things that disturb her mother.